Cataclysm Release Date, Gathering XP, Blue Posts

So, when is the release of Cataclysm?
Now that Patch 4.0.1 is on PTR, I get a lot of mails asking for a release date and I guess I can answer that without too much risk now.

Keep in mind that Blizzard didn't announce it because the release can still be postponed, but as far as I know the target release date for Cataclysm is the first week of November (that would be November 2, if you like numbers). The first part of the Cataclysm prologue started exactly 8 weeks before that and the next part of the pre-Cataclysm event will probably happen in 2 or 4 weeks depending on their schedule.

You got your answer, and hopefully people won't yell at me if something goes wrong.

Gathering professions now give XP

Originally Posted by Daeleht
(Blue Tracker)

This is an intentional change, however the values may not be final. Tradeskill nodes are intended to give you experience when you loot them.

Bastion of Twilight - Twilight Ascendant Council
The last member of the Twilight Ascendant Council had its model updated in the latest build. This encounter definitely looks promising.

Blue Posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Mimiron's Head/Invincible in 4.0
Ghostcrawler's stated idea to make such things really low drop rates is still a real possibility. Whether or not this change will take effect with patch 4.0.1 is to be determined. (Source)

Flying in Azeroth
Flying in Azeroth will not be possible until your account is upgraded to Cataclysm. Patch 4.0.1 is slated to be released prior to Cataclysm and will not include the changes to the old world or any content exclusive to Cataclysm. This patch will apply many systems, class, and user interface changes. It's very similar in nature to the major patches which preceded the releases of The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King. (Source)

Raid/Dungeons Content Difficulty
You are correct that a lot of players moan about things being too easy without having seen the content personally. We definitely place less emphasis on their feedback than on people who have actually tried those encounters.

The hardest encounters of LK were harder than anything we've offered before. And honestly, that point isn't often in contention. I think what surprised players is say how far they got in Naxxramas on their very first night, without a lot of planning or gearing, or how they managed to kill 2-3 heroic bosses on their first night of a new heroic wing being opened in Icecrown (though to be honest, fighting a boss for weeks on normal mode first definitely exacerbates that phenomenon).

We'll continue to offer some content for the cutting-edge progression raider. There is an encounter in Bastion of Twilight for them. But we also think true pugs shouldn't be stumbling their way through encounters they've never seen before, at least without a very strong or experienced leader.

To use my own guild as an example, in say the Serpentshrine days, we'd take a few weeks to master a new boss. I could probably count the number of time we got two new bosses on one night. I think a progression rate like that feels better to a lot of players. You spend time in between raid nights discussing what you could do differently on a tough boss, but then celebrate each victory.

A heroic dungeon doesn't need to be quite so brutal, but it still doesn't seem bad if you wipe on a new boss 2-3 times before you figure out a solid stragegy and everything falls into place. A lot of players love that puzzle-solving aspect of the encounters. It lets them exercise their mind, creativity and knowledge of game mechanics. When you can just overpower the boss and ignore the encounter mechanics, then a lot of that is lost. (Source)

Class balance on PTRs
Most likely not. We'll be evaluating the way players are performing in content on the 4.0.1 test realms, but keep in mind the class changes are balanced around level 85 gameplay. It's almost more likely we'd end up taking away the Icecrown Citadel buff (I'm only saying this is a possibility), as in many cases healing, tanking, and damage dealing may stand to benefit a lot from these changes at level 80.

Things will be a little bit interesting since these changes are being applied while players are still actively working through the current Wrath of the Lich King content. Bear with us and provide as much feedback as you can about your experiences with these changes under the current content, but keep in perspective that the new class design is meant to be balanced around the upcoming Cataclysm content. We're more interested in ironing out bugs and polishing the systems than attempting to balance them intricately for level 80 gameplay. (Source)

Using all your healing spells
This is a very common line of argument we see from players, especially healers. It runs something like "I use all my heals. I seem to be a pretty good healer. Therefore only using a few heals makes you a bad healer." It should make you a bad healer (if our numbers are appropriate) but often it does not. Often those 1-2 spells can take you 90% of the way there and the additional heals used my more savvy players only adds 10% or so optimization on top of that. You might have been a better paladin for using all of your toolbox, but the fact is that even very mediocre paladins could heal just fine using only those two buttons. That's not what we are going for. If you're used to using a variety of spells, then this change won't affect you much. (Source)

Making healing more challenging
We see the sentiment expressed often that making healing more challenging might drive players away. That is a risk, but the flip side is that making healing more engaging might attract some players who find it boring today.

While it has always been a goal to make World of Warcraft approachable to a lot of different kinds of players, including those who found traditional MMOs too hardcore, we'd rather retain players because the gameplay is fun than because the gameplay is easy.

Taking your argument to a probably illogical conclusion, if we made healing even easier, we might get even more players to heal. Is that really good for the game as a whole though? (Source)

Lack of healers in the Dungeon Finder in Cataclysm?
Players played WoW for six years without Dungeon Finder though. Dungeon Finder is awesome, don't get me wrong, and I spent a lot of time personally working on it. But the intent is not to be able farm dungeons as fast as you possibly can.

Healing (and tanking as well) isn't for everyone. It takes the right kind of mindset. I know there are players who want to make healing and tanking super easy in an attempt to adjust the ratios of dps to tanking and healing. There are also some who just want to get rid of the healing role completely.

None of those are our goals though. We want to make healing fun for healers, not make healing so easy that anyone can jump in without any fear of failure.

I remember looking for Scholomance or Shadow Labs pugs for literally 2-3 hours. There is almost no chance of that ever happening again now that we have Dungeon Finder, even if tanking and healing require a little more finesse.

So to answer your question, I think having more healers available at any cost is bad for the game. We want healing to be fun for people who like healing. If that means the mages and rouges have to wait 15 minutes for Dungeon Finder instead of 5 minutes, I think we can live with that. If nothing else, fast Dungeon Finder queues (or ease in finding a raid slot, etc.) remain attractive benefits of tanking and healing. (Source)

Paladin (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)70% spell pushbackHopefully they just make the 70% baseline for everyone with no pushback with earth shield or concentration aura type spells. Spell pushback is one of those things that can really drive you crazy in both PvP and PvE.
We did. We just changed the base pushback resistance so that we didn't have to duplicate the same passive bonus in every tree.

Tanking / Crusader StrikeIf CS and HotR are meant to be single/multi-target counterparts, then they should both hit as the same type of damage. Since CS is stuck as physical due to Ret using it, HotR should probably be switched to physical as well. Mana cost of HotR seems lower than it should be, compared to CS.
We want Prot paladins to be able to swap between Shield of the Righteous and Inquisition when going from single-target to AE tanking. One of the mechanics that lets that work is Hammer of the Righteous being improved by Holy damage.

Crusader Strike should win handily against single targets. If it's not doing that yet it's just a numbers adjustment, so you'd be better off testing as if it were the case rather than trying to build a rotation based around something that you know we're likely to change. (Source)

I get 160 characters on twitter and I post on both sites, blame Twitter not Boub. It's not like I'm trying to trick people into visiting the site, it's safe to assume that people who are in the MMO-Champion group will visit the site anyway

I get 160 characters on twitter and I post on both sites, blame Twitter not Boub. It's not like I'm trying to trick people into visiting the site, it's safe to assume that people who are in the MMO-Champion group will visit the site anyway